


Six Things Varric Left Out of The Tale of the Champion

by servantofclio



Series: Jocelyn Hawke [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, background Hawke/Anders, onesided Varric/Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-01 23:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10202909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio
Summary: Some observations and realizations Varric chose to keep to himself.(Because, in several cases, they're about his own feelings.)





	1. Chapter 1

**One: First Impressions**

“So,” Varric’s new prospective partner says. “That was a pretty good show you put on for us.”

Varric tilts his head and looks up at her, startled but keeping his cool. She’s bracing one elbow against the table, leaning toward him, with a sly grin on her face and a glint in her eye. She’s got a sharp face — pointed chin, angular cheekbones — and her eyes are an unusual blazing blue-green. Not a classic beauty, but a striking face, under the smudges of dirt and the messy dark hair flopping into her eyes. Hawke has an interesting reputation already; the mismatched, well-worn armor attests to that, but her face is even more interesting than Varric would have expected. She looks like she belongs in a story.

“What show?” he asks casually, settling back into his chair.

Hawke scoffs. “Don’t give me that.”

At Hawke’s side, her sister stirs nervously. “Let’s not...” she says before trailing off, teeth worrying at her lower lip. She’s a little shorter than her sister, her face a little softer and rounder; the same dark hair, but in smooth waves, tied back with a bit of bright ribbon. Most would call her prettier than her elder sister, but to Varric’s eye, she’s less vivid. More inclined to fade into the background, he’d wager. Not that he’d blame her, considering what he’s heard about her.

“It’s all right,” he says, with a reassuring smile, and Bethany smiles back, shyly. A dimple breaks the soft line of her cheek, a bit of unexpected sunshine in Corff’s dingy taproom. “I’m just curious what makes you think that was a show.”

“The timing was too good,” Hawke says, slouching into her chair a little. She’s still resting her arm on the table, her shoulders hunched and her fingers idly drumming against the wood. “Altogether too slick and convenient. Nice work with that bolt, though. You’re a good shot.” Her smile’s as sharp as the rest of her face, but her eyes crinkle.

“I do my best,” Varric replies dryly. Bianca does most of the work, but that’s neither here nor there.

Hawke chuckles. “The one thing I can’t figure out is how you knew we were going to be there, to set up that little play for us.” She raises an eyebrow, inviting response.

Varric shrugs and decides to let her in. She’s worked out most of it on her own, anyway, and his estimation of her wits goes up a notch. “Cooked it up while you were talking to Bartrand. I knew he’d tell you no, so...”

“Ah, yes, brother Bartrand,” Hawke says. “Not the most open to new ideas, then?”

Varric hesitates. Bartrand is many things, among them blinkered, stubborn, and set in his ways. Varric isn’t sure just yet how far he wants to let the Hawke sisters into Tethras family business. “He has me to see the big picture,” he says instead. Which would be even better for the Tethras family fortunes, of course, if Bartrand didn’t ignore Varric’s advice half the time and hide information from him another quarter of the time. Definitely no need to mention those little details. Let their new partners think he and Bartrand are really a team. For now, anyway.

“So that makes you, what, your brother’s spectacles?” Hawke asks with a grin.

Bethany sighs wearily. Varric, caught off guard by the joke, laughs instead. “You might say that,” he allows. “I keep my ears open, too. The two of you have a reputation in certain quarters of the city, and I heard were rumors you might be looking for a good opportunity. So I wasn’t surprised when you showed up. Drinks?”

Bethany tenses slightly and shifts in her chair. Hawke only sharpens her gaze. “Who’s buying?”

“I am,” Varric says, because it usually pays to be generous, especially when your companions are a little threadbare.

“By all means, then.” Hawke leans back and waves her hand airily. “Be our host, master Tethras.”

Varric grins and signals Norah. “Just Varric.”

At this hour, the taproom isn’t even half-full. It only takes a minute for the ale to arrive. Varric waits until they’ve settled in before adding, “Rumor didn’t say exactly why you were wanting to strike out on your own, though.” His turn to invite a confidence, though he already has a guess.

The sisters exchange glances. “There’s not much to tell, really,” Bethany says.

“Our contract’s up,” Hawke says with a careless shrug. “Our dear uncle sold our services to Athenril for the right to enter the city, y’see, and it’s been a year.”

“Right,” Varric says slowly, remembering the glut of refugees outside the gate a year ago. The Hawkes are far from the only ones to find their way into Kirkwall through underground deals and connections.

“Athenril’s not a bad person,” Bethany adds. Some would find that an odd bit of praise for a smuggler, but Varric privately agrees. Athenril has standards, unlike some, and she’s a fair dealer. “She hasn’t been bad to us, at least. We just...”

“We’re not going to get anywhere being good little smugglers, giving Athenril her take,” Hawke says briskly. “We do our own work, maybe we thrive, maybe not, but at least we don’t have to hand over most of our profits.” Her expression hardens as she speaks, and she turns toward her sister, who nods once. The words sound well-honed, like they’ve talked this over a hundred times.

“Believe me,” Varric says, at his most warm and reassuring, “this expedition should make all of us rich beyond our wildest dreams.” Assuming Bartrand’s information is correct, at least. A lot is riding on that. Varric’s fairly sure the information’s good, but he’ll keep that nagging bit of uncertainty to himself for now.

“I’ll drink to riches,” Hawke says, raising her mug. Varric lifts his as well.

“It’s not just for us,” Bethany adds. “We have our mother to think of, too.”

“Your mother?” Varric inquires genially. The rumors had talked about the younger Hawke’s magic, and the elder’s quick wits and skill with a blade, but hadn’t said much about a mother.

“It’s hard for her, living in Lowtown,” Bethany says, downcast.

Varric nods. Lowtown’s no picnic for everyone, let along the fragile, aging parent he imagines.

Bethany adds, “There used to be a family estate, but... not any more.”

Hawke’s mouth tightens. “Our mother is from the Amell family,” she adds.

“Ah,” Varric says, revising his impression. He knows a bit about people who can’t let go of past glories. It sounds like the Hawke sisters’ mother might be one of them, and he doesn’t envy them. “A good family,” he adds, and then puts this together with what Hawke said a minute ago about their uncle. “Then your uncle must be Gamlen Amell?”

Hawke smiles. “Unfortunately so. Do you know uncle Gamlen? I hope he doesn’t owe you money.”

“No, no,” Varric says. He warned Bartrand off from loaning money to Gamlen Amell ages ago. “Just by reputation.”

Both sisters wince. “So you can see why the family’s fallen on hard times,” Hawke adds dryly.

“To success in the Deep Roads, then,” Varric says, considering it wiser to change the subject. He holds up his ale. “Here’s to coming back with wealth enough for all our dreams.”

Their three cups meet with a satisfying clink. Bethany blinks and shakes her head as she drinks, but Hawke’s sharp face is all alight.

Here’s to a promising beginning, Varric thinks, and drinks.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

After they drag themselves out of the Deep Roads, filthy with sweat and grime, eyes watering in the suddenness of light, Varric doesn’t see Hawke for almost a month.

He can’t blame her, really. It’s bad enough for him, getting stabbed in the back by his own brother, but for Hawke to watch her sister wither and die that way —

It was heavy shit, and a damned shame. Even Varric’s best-crafted words seemed paltry, inadequate. He’d liked Bethany Hawke, whose smile could light a room, but who clung to her sister’s shadow in hopes no one would notice her. Who was gentle and sweet and had tended a nest of motherless street kittens for weeks, and could also light darkspawn on fire with a sweep of her staff. She’d been so eager to go on the damned expedition, too. She and Hawke had argued about it for days, and in the end she’d begged Hawke not to leave her at home with their mother. Bethany had stayed cheerful even as they descended into the darkness of those too-still vaults, with Bartrand grumbling at them the whole time.

For the first two weeks after they get back, Varric is too busy to dwell on the question of whether he’ll ever see Hawke again. He has Bartrand’s ledgers to sort out (and ledgers that Bartrand had squirreled away out of sight to find); he puts the word out to a couple of enterprising folks who might know where the hell Bartrand’s run off to with that sodding idol; he’s got assorted members of the Merchants’ Guild practically beating down his door with barrage of questions and demands. Apparently Bartrand Tethras’ disappearance makes a hole in a lot of people’s plans. Unwillingly, Varric can understand how Bartrand came to sink himself into business affairs so thoroughly. Varric barely has a chance to write a single sentence the whole time, which only makes him resent the demands and questions and ledgers all the more.

He’s poring over some books, squinting at Bartrand’s handwriting, when it occurs to him that Bethany’s death is really Varric’s fault. If he hadn’t dragged the Hawke sisters into this mess in the first place —

Well, he’d probably be dead, for one thing. But Bethany Hawke wouldn’t be.

For most of that third week, the notion that Hawke might never come back eats at Varric, gnawing away at the back of his mind. He reminds himself that he doesn’t need lunatic barbarian with daggers hanging around, really, even though Hawke’s always good for a laugh or a drink or a story. She’s been a partner, even a friend, but...

The way the Merchants’ Guild keeps after him, he’s not going to have much time for adventure for the foreseeable future, anyway.

But Hawke turns up before the month is quite out, marching into the Hanged Man and demanding a shot of whiskey like nothing ever happened.

Or, no. Varric revises the thought as Hawke downs the drink in one gulp and holds it out for a refill. Not at all like nothing ever happened.

Even so, the invisible band that’s been tightening around Varric’s chest eases at the sight of her.

Hawke pivots and strides across the room to Varric’s usual table, glass in hand. Her mouth is drawn tight, her cheekbones sharp and angled under her skin. There’s a bleakness in her eyes that reminds him of staring down dark passages beneath the earth.

Hawke casts herself into a chair, propping up one booted foot on the table, and says, “Sorry I’ve been away.”

She sounds bright and careless and brittle. A little forced.

Varric plays along. “No worries. It’s been a hell of a month.”

Hawke grimaces. “You said it.”

He hesitates, watching her drink. He’s reluctant to probe a sore spot, but he figures he has to say it sometime. “How’s your mother?”

Hawke shudders and drains her glass. “About as well as you’d expect.”

“I’m sorry.” They’re poor words, but they’re all he’s got.

Hawke shakes her head. “Why? It wasn’t your fault.”

The lie of that sits heavily on Varric’s chest at night. “If it hadn’t been for me, you’d never have gone to the Deep Roads.”

“And if it hadn’t been for me, Bethany would have been safe and sound with Mother.” Hawke stares into her glass, suddenly years older.

“She wanted to go,” Varric points out.

Hawke shrugs one shoulder. “She would have stayed if I’d said no. I shouldn’t have risked both of us. If Bethany had stayed and I hadn’t come back, Mother might be happier.”

That statement lies there like someone dropped a turd on the table. Varric searches vainly for better words. Leandra Hawke’s always been kind enough to him, warm and gracious, sometimes with a flash of the flirtatious girl who ran away with a dashing apostate all those years ago. It’s easy to see where both her daughters got their charm. 

But he also knows she’s hard on Hawke, and always has been.

Parents get like that with their children, sometimes. Lean too much on one or another.

“But no matter,” Hawke says with that same brittle cheer. “Mother’s already putting our newfound fortune to use, at least.”

“She’s petitioning the Viscount?” Varric asks, relieved to change the subject.

“She’s got an appointment next week. The Amell estate might be ours as early as next month.”

“Well,” Varric says. “That’s something, anyway. Congratulations.”

“No need. Recovering the estate was always Mother’s ambition.” Hawke’s mouth quivers, and Varric flinches. It was always Bethany’s cause, too; she’s always been the one to push the issue of the inheritance, from what he’d overheard.

“Still,” he says, wishing he’d never said anything. “Not that your uncle’s place in Lowtown isn’t... something, but...”

Hawke snorts and brightens. “True, anything will be better than living in a hovel with uncle Gamlen. Even mansions recently occupied by slavers. Speaking of, have you seen Fenris since we got back?”

“Yeah, he’s stopped by a couple of times,” Varric says. He’d made sure the elf had been paid appropriately, considering their sojourn in the Deep Roads had been a lot longer and a lot more desperate than they’d planned on. Varric’s also passed Fenris’s name on to others who might be looking for a hired sword, too. Prickly the man might be, but there’s no doubt he’s both swift and lethal in a fight. Besides that, he kept a cool head when everything went to shit down there, and that kind of steady under pressure a hell of a lot. He adds, “Rivaini’s still asleep upstairs, I’ll wager, and Daisy’s been by. You, ah,” he hesitates for a second. “Have you seen Blondie lately?”

Hawke’s quick nod eases the worry in his gut. “He visited the other day. He seems to blame himself, too. It’s not as if he could have done anything much.” She sighs. “I suppose he was right about the Deep Roads the whole time.”

“I suppose so,” Varric says, remembering Blondie’s refusal to join them, how wild-eyed and adamant he’d been. Varric was never a great fan of the depths himself, but he’d wondered at the man’s vehemence.

At this point, he’d probably react the same way. No one could pay him enough to go back down there.

“Enough about that.” Hawke signals for more drink. “Let’s get everyone together for cards. I think I can even pry Aveline out of the barracks. What do you say?”

“Any time,” Varric says, his worry easing. Back to something like normal sounds like what they all need. “Say the word and I’ll win your half of the loot back from you.”

“Ha!” Hawke’s eyes brighten. “We’ll see about that. What else is going on? Anything I should know about?”

That’s the Hawke he knows, all right. The knot in his stomach eases as he sits back to tell her the last month’s gossip.


	3. Chapter 3

**Three: That She** **’s Beautiful**

“Vaarrric,” Hawke singsongs. “Time to wake u-up.”

Her voice calls him back through a haze. As Varric swims back to consciousness, he becomes dimly aware of something persistently patting his cheek. He opens his eyes, muzzy-headed, vision wavering. Heat radiating from somewhere over on his left, darkness all around. A pale oval above him. He blinks, and it resolves into a face, shaded by a fall of dark hair. 

“’Sokay, beautiful,” he mumbles, his eyes drifting shut.

Hawke laughs. “Oh, Varric, I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be too flattered,” comes Fenris’s voice, dry as dust. “He did nearly get his head caved in.”

Varric blinks again. It’s Hawke’s face, smiling, the campfire casting a reddish glow over her light skin. Campfire. Okay, yeah, that’s what’s making the heat. It crackles merrily away, the sound soothing. 

“Still, it’s the thought that counts,” Hawke says, still smiling. Now that Varric’s eyes have focused, he can see that there’s dirt on her cheek and a streak of dried blood across her forehead. Her hair is matted with sweat, some of it stuck to her face, some of it sticking up oddly. She obviously hasn’t cleaned up after the battle.

_Beautiful? Where did that come from?_

But her mouth does have a beautiful lopsided curve, her lips full, and there’s a perfect little crease at the corner of her mouth that might, with a little license, be called a dimple.

“Varric?” Hawke waves her fingers in front of Varric’s eyes. “Come on, quit staring and talk to me.”

“Uh.” Varric levers himself up on one elbow and immediately wishes he hadn’t. The world rocks and his head feels like an overripe fruit about to split. He groans and drops to the ground again. “What happened?”

“You took quite the whack to the noggin,” Hawke says, bending her neck to peer into his face.

“A Tal-Vashoth leaped out of hiding behind you,” Fenris supplies.

Right. Hawke had come along to the Hanged Man and cajoled him out for some errand or other on the Wounded Coast, saying, “Come on, Varric, it’ll be good for you! Fresh air and a little adventure, what’s not to like?”

Varric groans and drops back to a prone position. “I’m never going anywhere with you again.”

“Oh, that’s good, he said a whole sentence that time,” Merrill pipes up from somewhere near the fire.

Hawke snorts. “Don’t be ridiculous, how else will you get enough stories for that book you keep talking about?”

“I’ll make them up. What do you think?” The stories are plenty embellished already. Even a good story needs a little shaping.

There’s laughter all around:  Merrill’s bright giggle and Fenris’s short, deep chuckle, and Hawke’s laughter, bright like bells. Hawke leans away and reaches for something, and — _ah_ — presses a cool, damp cloth to Varric’s aching head.

She’s still smiling when she says, “Without me you’d just sit in the Hanged Man all day, and you’d miss out on all this fun.” Her eyes are serious, for all her light tone.

“Sitting in the Hanged Man sounds pretty good right about now,” Varric points out. The cool cloth feels all right, though, a gentle balm.

Hawke’s lips turn up. There’s the dimple again. Varric’s a little fascinated by it. “Mmm. What about the Merchants’ Guild?”

Varric groans. “Now you’re being mean. Why would you want to remind me about the Merchants’ Guild?”

“Just making sure you’re reacting normally,” Hawke says, amused.

Varric grumbles, low in his throat. It’s not the first time he’s been laid out, and probably won’t be the last. Enemies have a nasty habit of springing up behind them once they’ve committed to a fight. Maybe he really should rethink the bit where he leaves the Hanged Man, ever.

He doesn’t quite realize he’s spoken aloud until Hawke says, “Pah, you’d only get fat and lazy, and Bianca would get bored. We couldn’t have that, could we?”

Varric blinks. “Guess not. Bianca likes a little action now and then.”

“Exactly. And what would I do out here without my favorite dwarf? I’d have to find another dwarf, and where would I find one as debonair and charming?”

Compliments. Varric isn’t sure where those came from, either. He squints at Hawke, bemused, but she just smiles back.

With Hawke’s help, he makes a second attempt at sitting up. This one goes a little better. At least, his surroundings stay in focus, more or less. Varric keeps clutching the cool rag to his aching head, though. “Hawke.”

“Yes, Varric?” She fairly hovers by his side, all solicitous.

“You’ve got something on your face.”

She scrunches up her face and swipes uselessly at her cheek, while Varric tries to point out the streaks of dirt and blood. Hawke finally gives up with a scoff and wanders off to clean up, leaving Varric propped on an assortment of baggage and bedrolls. He squirms around a bit to avoid whatever is jabbing into his back. “What’s even in this sack,” he grumbles.

He’s not particularly expecting an answer, but Merrill says, “You know Hawke, the usual odds and ends.”

“Probably a piece of armor,” Fenris adds helpfully. Both elves are planted by the fire, Fenris meticulously cleaning the enormous sword he hauls around, while Merrill putters about the cooking pot hoisted over the flames. “Or a bag of rocks.”

“Would you like some stew?” Merrill asks.

Varric’s not a picky eater, but Merrill’s idea of appropriate flavorings is sometimes a little... floral... for his tastes. He hesitates, but his stomach rumbles audibly, so he says, “Sure,” with a certain degree of wariness.

The food is good, though, rabbit and herbs, nothing fancy. The party looks well settled in around the fire. Must have been here for a few hours at least.

Varric clears his throat. “So I was out for a while?”  


“Hawke was concerned,” Fenris says without looking up.

“I did my best to help, since Anders isn’t here,” Merrill says, biting her lip.

Fenris grumbles low in his throat.

Yeah. Usually Anders _would_ be part of Hawke’s party. But lately... well, Varric isn’t quite sure what’s going on with those two lately. Maybe Justice got a little ornery about something, maybe some kind of lovers’ spat. Neither one has said anything to him, but then, they wouldn’t, necessarily. Whatever happened, Blondie’s been burying himself in his clinic and his manuscripts more often, the last couple weeks. He’s even missed Wicked Grace nights a couple of times.

Merrill’s not the healer Anders is, but he’s touched that she tried. “I’m sure you did just fine, Daisy,” Varric says. “I feel better already.”

This is a lie, but not too much of one. His head still hurts, but he’s not seeing double or off-balance or nauseated any more. Of course, he’s also sitting very, very still. Sitting still sounds like a great idea.

Merrill brightens, anyway, which makes the lie worthwhile.

Hawke comes back up the path, whistling and smelling of salt water. She helps herself to the stew and plants herself beside Varric to eat it. “How are you feeling, Varric?”

“Better,” he lies again. “I was just saying.”

Hawke nods. “Anders can take a look at you when we get back to the city.”

“I’ll be fine,” he says, settling back down. “I’ll just rest for a while.”

He listens while the rest of them move around, finishing up their meal and laying out bedrolls, talking idly about their plans for the morning. For some reason, Hawke chooses to roll her bedding out beside Varric, sprawling like a great warm log. Varric settles himself to sleep, listening to her breath blowing in and out.

He wakes up when Hawke repeatedly jabs an extremely pointy finger into his ribs. “What the hell, Hawke?” He fumbles, swatting her hand away.

“Head injury, got to make sure you wake up,” she says, quietly but far too cheerfully, dodging his efforts and poking him again.

“Nnnghhh, quit it.” He finally gets a hold on her hand. Her fingers are cold, thin and calloused.

Hawke laughs, soft and throaty. “You are my favorite, you know. Can’t let anything happen to you.”

“Mm.” Varric pushes her cold hands away. “I’m fine, Hawke.”

She’s quiet for a moment. He’s half-asleep again when she says, “I’ll watch your back better next time.”

“Go back to sleep, Hawke,” he mumbles.

“Night, Varric.”

In the morning, he remembers those words, but Hawke never mentions them again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Four: How It Feels When She Falls**

The Arishok towers over Hawke. He’s half again as tall and three times as broad, all steel-gray sinew and twisting horns. She’s so small in front of him, she looks like a child.

But she stands anyway, chin up, hip cocked out to the side with her usual careless swagger, a blade loosely gripped in one hand. Brilliant and bold, the only thing standing between Kirkwall and qunari rule that the city hadn’t seen in a century. Varric’s never loved her more.

 _Loved_?

Shit.

He hasn’t more than a heartbeat for the thought to sink in, because in the next moment, the fight is on.

Hawke’s skilled at combat, and the Arishok’s spent the last three years mostly sitting on his ass, as best Varric can tell. Even so, it rapidly becomes clear that her best advantage is speed. She’s quick and light on her feet, spinning out of the way while the Arishok’s fucking enormous weapon is still on its downswing. And she gets her hits in; it’s the Arishok who bleeds first, a line of crimson streaking across his massive bicep, another across his ribs. Good.

But then Hawke’s a touch too slow, or half a step out of position, and the Arishok clips her with a sweeping blow. Only clips her, a glancing hit to her thigh, but Hawke staggers, off-balance for a moment. Varric stiffens, his hand twitching toward Bianca’s grip.

The nearest of the Arishok’s guards raises his axe an inch. Varric bites his tongue and settles himself.

On the floor, Hawke recovers, nimbly dodges the next blow, and goes back to her dance, nipping in under the Arishok’s guard, scoring a hit, and wheeling away again, out of reach. But Varric’s used to watching her fight, used to fighting beside her, and he can see that her rhythm’s a hair off.

It only gets worse from there.

Varric thinks he ought to be watching, observing the details, capturing them in memory so he can let them out on the page, later. Only he can’t make himself keep his gaze on the fight. Once Hawke is limping, trailing streaks of blood on the tiles behind her, he has to avert his eyes, his mouth shut tight. He’s seen enough bloodshed and death, he thinks. He can make up the details. Nobody really wants to read _this_ , anyway. He’ll... shit. If he can bring himself to set this down on the page, he’ll have to find a way to pretty it up, somehow. To make it something other than a mountain of disciplined muscle slaughtering one brave fool.

Hawke screams, jerking Varric’s attention away from the cracks in the floor and back to the spectacle in front of him. She’s aloft, the Arishok’s sword piercing through her gut, her feet kicking weakly as he lifts the blade, teeth bared. He gives the sword a shake, drawing another cry from Hawke as another bloodied handspan of blade slides out her back. They’re nearly face to face, Hawke elevated to the Arishok’s height.

This is it, Varric thinks, with a sort of frozen fatalism. No one’s going to survive that.

Hawke’s face twists into a snarl, and she jams the point of her long dagger into the Arishok’s chest. His face goes slack with shock. Hawke shoves with the last of her strength, the blade sliding into him at an angle, upward, behind the qunari’s sternum.

For a moment the two combatants hold each other in a deadly tableau, both of them pierced, bleeding, failing, still. Varric stands numb, the room utterly silent.

Then the Arishok topples, an avalanche of a man falling to the floor. Around the room, a low groan goes up from the qunari, the first noise any of them have made in the whole fight. The qunari step back, weapons lowered, but Varric hardly sees it.

Now he can’t look away.

The sword drops from the Arishok’s slack grip. Hawke falls with it, hitting the floor with a clatter of metal and a strangled cry.

The sound releases the onlookers from their immobility. Varric bolts across the floor. He’s not the only one. By the time he gets to Hawke, Anders is already there, crouching beside her, saying, “Hawke, no, don’t try to talk.”

“’M gonna...” She coughs, wetly.

“Don’t talk,” Anders repeats, firmly. He reaches for her hands, where she’s weakly scrabbling at the blade that protrudes from her stomach. “Hawke, don’t.”

There’s a shitload of blood, all over the floor, all over Hawke. Lakes of it, staining the tiles. Varric can’t tell how much of it is hers. Anders is muttering under his breath, eyes squeezed shut, and Varric hesitates, unsure how to help, or whether he’s just in the way. A brief azure glow rises around Anders’ hands, and the rasping sound of Hawke’s breath seems to ease a little. Varric’s eases with it.

“We need to get this sword out of her,” Anders says. When he looks up, his eyes are ringed with blue, and his voice takes on a deeper resonance. “We must be prepared to heal the damage and stop the bleeding as quickly as possible. Can you remove the sword, quickly?”

Varric swallows, looking at the massive weapon, nearly as long as Hawke is tall, piercing her from belly to spine, smeared and stained with her blood. “Yeah, okay.”

Anders wraps an arm around her shoulders, bracing her in position as Varric takes the grip. He tries to jostle her as little as possible, but Hawke’s whimpers tell him even that is hurting her. Varric glances uneasily at Anders. Justice. Whoever’s running the show right now. If they can save Hawke’s life, Varric doesn’t much care. “You ready?”

“Do it,” Anders says.

Varric takes a firm grip and pulls. The blade slides through Hawke’s flesh with a hideous wet sound. Hawke gasps, her voice edged and breathy. Anders murmurs something, while a blue shimmer coalesces around him, and then pulses into Hawke’s body.

The tip of the sword comes free and Varric hurls it to the side, flinging it from him with revulsion. As it clatters across the floor, a little dark blood leaks from the gaping slash in Hawke’s belly. Only a little. It could have been more, should have been more, surely. Anders presses his hand to the wound, power visibly pulsing around his fingers and then fading. When he draws his hand away, the hole is smaller, only two fingers’ width instead of a hand’s breadth.

After that, they carry her home after that, bearing heron a hastily assembled stretcher, with an escort of city guards. Aveline can’t linger long, only staying long enough to see Hawke set in her bed before she departs with her guard, to make sure the qunari are packing up and going. Merrill runs out to collect Anders’ stash of lyrium from his clinic, and her own bundles of healing herbs; Varric rounds up Orana and Bodahn, to bring water, towels, bandages, food. Anders chases everyone else out of Hawke’s bedroom.

“What were you thinking?” Varric snaps at Fenris as they descend into Hawke’s parlor.

The elf draws a breath and lets it out again before answering. “I was thinking that she would save the city.”

Varric has no answer, words and pent-up worry both caught behind his teeth. Fenris carefully folds himself into a chair, eyes fixed on the pattern of the rug. Varric, with a huff, subsides into another. He eyes Hawke’s writing desk, his fingers itching for pen and paper, but his heart is pounding too fast to set anything down now.

Besides, the story isn’t over.

Unoccupied, his hands curl into fists. The realization he had at the beginning of the battle tumbles out of the back of his mind, rattling around.

In some stories, this would be the moment for a dramatic confession, the lover clutching his bleeding beloved in his arms as she breathed her last. In other stories, the tearful lover would sit anxiously by his wounded beloved’s bedside, clasping her hand while the healer worked.

Hawke’s lover — healer, too — is already with her. There’s no need for another at her bedside. Varric firmly pushes the rattling thought away.

He’d like to get rid of it entirely, but it sits there, like a stone in his shoe, small and aggravating and impossible to ignore.

It’s two hours before Anders comes down, drawn and weary, and proclaims that Hawke will live. Another four days pass before Hawke herself is fit to leave her room: wan, bandaged, swathed in woolen robes, but smiling. “What a fuss you’re all making,” she says, settling gingerly onto the couch, while Anders tucks a blanket around her. “You’d think I’d died, or something.”

“You nearly did, Hawke,” Merrill points out, her brow furrowed in worry.

Hawke laughs and winces, pressing a hand to her stomach. “So dramatic,” she murmurs.

Varric clears his throat. “Besides, you’re the woman of the hour.”

“Oh?” Hawke asks, smiling.

“Meredith wants to name you the city’s Champion,” Aveline adds.

Hawke shakes her head. “Well, I suppose that’s something. What does that even mean? Are there formal duties? Do I get a uniform?”

“Meredith,” Anders says darkly, but without the usual amount of venom. He sits down beside Hawke and puts an arm around her shoulders. “She’s just looking for a new way to take power, with the Viscount gone.”

Hawke sighs, tilting her head against his shoulder. “Ugh, let’s not talk about Meredith now, please.”

“Of course.” Anders sighs. “If I’d lost you...”

“Don’t talk like that, you saved my life,” Hawke says, smiling and leaning into him.

They’re a perfect picture of lovebirds, settled together on the couch, the champion and her healer, gazing at each other fondly. They might be the only two people in the room.

Aveline clears her throat, and the moment is broken.

Varric tries to look casual, like a man who doesn’t have a stone in his shoe.


	5. Chapter 5

**Five: What She Confesses, and What He Doesn** **’t**

“I haven’t the faintest notion what I’m doing, you know,” Hawke says quietly one night. It’s late, the clientele of the Hanged Man reduced to a few drunks slumped over their tables, and Hawke and Varric, sharing a table near the fire.

Varric snorts. “Do you ever know what you’re doing?”

Hawke raises her head from where it’s propped on her hand. She smiles, but it’s a stretched-out thing that pulls at her mouth, without touching her eyes. “Making it up as I go usually works. But this...” The smile slides away as she shakes her head. “I don’t know what to do.”

Varric hums and sips from his glass. “This shit has been going on long before you came along,” he offers. He was barely more than a kid when Viscount Threnhold went down, but he’d seen how Meredith emerged from that gleaming and golden, with poor old Marlowe Dumar quaking in her shadow.

“Exactly,” Hawke says, pointing at him. “The Grand Cleric talks about Meredith as if she’s just... just a naughty little girl who will learn to behave in time. But she’s wrong. Meredith doesn’t budge an inch, nor for anyone. And there’s no viscount now to sort things out. Not that the old viscount ever did.”

Varric grimaces, remembering the rumors that circulated back in the day. “Meredith was the one who put him in the Viscount’s throne,” he reminds her. “Hard for Dumar to do much against her.”

Hawke wrinkles her nose. “And look where that got him and his son,” she says sourly, and takes a drink. Varric grunts in agreement. They settle into silence, staring at nothing and drinking one of Corff’s better brews, until Hawke says, “Meredith put me where I am, too.”

“What, the Hanged Man?” Varric jokes.

“No, you know...” Hawke sits up straight and waves a hand, indicating herself. She’s not dressed in the full Champion’s armor commissioned for her, but she’s wearing the belt, and one of the bracers. The rest of her gear is good stuff, fine leather and wool and gleaming steel; the hilt of the blade on her back winks with jewels. Her cheeks have filled out since that sharp-faced kid who first sat opposite Varric at this very table, but her eyes are more shadowed, ringed with purple. The loss of her mother and sister still drags behind her like a wet cloak.

Damn, he’s getting maudlin in his old age.

“I know what you mean, Hawke,” he says.

Hawke slumps into the chair again, tilting it back on its back legs. “Champion of Kirkwall, what does that even mean? Am I supposed to keep on saving Kirkwall no matter what, or is it just... thanks for a job well done, Hawke, most of us didn’t really fancy living under the Qun? Here’s a statue and some fancy armor to remember us by?”

“Damned if I know,” Varric says.

“Then we’re both fucked, ‘cause you’re smarter than I am,” Hawke says. Her chair teeters.

“Nah, I just tell stories.”

“So you keep saying.” Hawke knocks back the rest of her drink and sighs, letting the chair fall down with a thump. “Right, it’s getting late. I should be off.”

“G’night, Hawke.”

She rises and crosses the room, not drunk enough to have lost her usual fluid swagger. When she opens the door, a gust of cold, damp air swirls around the taproom, drawing grumbles from a couple of patrons.

“Maker’s ass,” Hawke says. “It’s _raining_.”

She sounds so utterly forlorn that Varric grins to himself. He gets up and saunters over to stand beside her. “Well, look at that.”

Hawke whimpers. To be fair, Kirkwall’s winter rains are wretched: cold, stinging, somehow inevitably getting through whatever you’re wearing, no matter how much you’ve bundled up. Smirking, Varric slaps Hawke on the shoulder. “Have a nice walk home, Hawke. I’d go with you, but there’s a nice warm bed right here in the tavern calling my name.”

“Varric,” Hawke whines.

“What?” he asks innocently.

She pouts at him. “You’re not going to make me walk all the way home, are you? The streets get so slippery. I could fall and bash my head, and then where would we be?”

“Well, we can’t have that,” he agrees. “Come on up.”

Hawke smiles, victorious, and heads for the stairs.

Varric’s rooms are dim, only one lamp lit low. Hawke’s already shucking off her boots and coat by the time Varric gets there. “You can have a chair,” he tells her. The padded armchairs are plenty comfortable; he’s fallen asleep in them enough times to know.

“Don’t be that way, you have a perfectly lovely spacious bed right here.”

“Which is my bed,” Varric points out.

“What, afraid I’m after your virtue?”

Varric can’t make out Hawke very well in the dim light, but he’s fairly sure she’s waggling her eyebrows at him. “Afraid you’ll steal all the covers,” he says.

Hawke gasps. “I’m shocked at the very suggestion.” She pads across the dark room, and Varric can hear the soft creak as she flops herself on the bed.

He sighs, beginning to disrobe. “I’ll just sleep in the chair.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hawke says, voice muffled. “I’ll be good, I promise.”

Varric hesitates. Being good isn’t really the problem. There really isn’t a problem at all. They’ve all camped together enough times.

But somehow, this rainy night feels different. Just the two of them in his rooms, rather than four of them and a dog spreading out bedrolls under the open sky.

He only moves when Hawke makes a disgruntled noise and says, “Come _on_.”

Then, of course, once he’s in the bed, she jabs him with her elbow.

“Move over,” Varric says, jabbing back. “If you do steal the covers, Hawke, so help me...”

Hawke giggles, and he leaves the threat unfinished. She wriggles around on her side of the bed and eventually says, sleepily, “G’night, Varric.”

“Good night, Hawke.”

He lies awake for a while, staring at the ceiling, too conscious of the warm body sprawled carelessly beside him.

Eventually, he wakes up with the covers in a tangle. Mostly on Hawke’s side of the bed, of course.

Hawke’s still asleep, flopped on her stomach, tousled dark hair poking out of the blankets. She makes a brief grumbling noise as Varric slips out of bed, but doesn’t move. He lets her be while he stokes the fire, collects the morning’s parcel of mail, and settles down to get in some writing before tackling the messages and accounts.

He gets nearly an hour of solid scribbling in before Hawke’s sleepy voice sounds across the room. “What do you have there? _Hard in Hightown_?”

“Next installment’s due the end of the month,” Varric replies, glancing up.

Hawke sits up in bed, yawning and running her hands through her hair. “Is it still raining?”

“How would I know, Hawke? I haven’t left the room.”

“You’d never leave the tavern if I didn’t pry you out.” She stretches her arms out, arching her back, and slides out of bed, lazy and catlike; clasps her hands over head and curves first to one side, then the other; then shakes out her shoulders and does it all over again. She stripped down to her shirt to sleep in; the soft, well-worn linen hangs loose to mid-thigh, clinging to her body. As she moves, the hem rides up, exposing the pale skin along her hip.

Varric averts his eyes, feeling as if he’s the one exposed. Hawke, grumbling and stretching, seems utterly un-self-conscious, not minding his presence in the slightest. “That’s not true,” he says, belatedly picking up the thread of the conversation. “I get around plenty.”

“Uh-huh. I’m sure you do.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Hawke sit down on the bed, grabbing her breeches off the floor and pulling them on — which is good, all in all, but it’s also giving Varric more of a look at her long, bare, shapely legs than is strictly necessary.

He sets the pen aside, determinedly returning his eyes to the page in front of him. This shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter to Hawke, obviously enough, which is obscurely irritating all by itself. But the last thing Varric needs is something to rattle certain buried thoughts loose. “I’m a man about town,” he says to the half-written page. “I go all sorts of places. Always have. Long before you came along.”

“And yet you whine every time I try to drag out of the city.” Hawke strolls over and drops into the chair across from him, smirking.

At least she’s in shirt and breeches now, but she still hasn’t put on her vest or coat or armor, and the shirt’s laces are undone at the neck, revealing a creamy swath of skin. “That’s because you’re always dragging me somewhere with a high chance of giant spiders,” Varric says with asperity.

Hawke shudders dramatically and leans back in the chair. “Nobody likes the giant spiders, Varric, but someone’s got to deal with them. Don’t you have any breakfast around here?”

“Corff’s probably got some slop downstairs.”

Hawke wrinkles her nose.

Varric shrugs, regaining a bit of equilibrium. “Don’t look at me. I don’t like breakfast.”

Hawke gasps. “Don’t be absurd, breakfast is fantastic. How can you not like breakfast?”

Varric shrugs again. He doesn’t usually like eating first thing in the morning, never has. “I just don’t, Hawke. Don’t take it personally.”

“Hmm.” She leans forward, peering at his pages. “What are you writing? Can I see?”

Varric moves his blotter over the pages, blocking her view. “You can read them when they come out, just like everyone else. I’ve told you this before.” He hates having someone look over his shoulder while he’s working.

Hawke slumps in her chair and pouts. “You don’t let me read your book and you don’t even have breakfast. Shouldn’t being your friend get me some privileges, Varric?”

“I let you sleep here,” he points out, annoyed. She’s the one who invited herself in here, after all. “I bet you’ve got breakfast waiting for you at home.”

Her eyes widen. “Varric, are you trying to get rid of me?”

They stare at each other across the table. “Of course not,” Varric says, but catches himself in the lie immediately. He’s got a morning routine: writing, then business — all the messages and reports and checking of accounts that his friends ignore — and then he saunters downstairs around noon, when he’s ready for food, company, and conversation. Hawke being here in the middle of all that disrupts everything. She pulls all his attention to herself. Like usual.

Look. Hawke is Varric’s friend. It’s nothing more.

All right, she’s his _best_ friend. It’s still nothing more.

It _can_ _’t_ be anything more. For one thing, it’s obvious she doesn’t think of him as anything but a friend. Otherwise she wouldn’t be so casual spending the night.

For another thing, she and Blondie are still doing... whatever they’re doing. They fight side by side, they argue with each other, they handle each other with careless intimacy, they take each other for granted. Varric hasn’t seen more affection between them than a peck on the cheek in weeks, but as far as he knows, Anders still sleeps in Hawke’s house when he’s not burning the midnight oil down in the clinic. The two of them are wrapped in the same ropes, the knots pulling tighter the more they struggle against them. Whatever’s going on with them, Varric wouldn’t get in the middle of it, even if Hawke showed any signs of being interested in him. Which she doesn’t. Hasn’t ever.

She knows him well enough to see through his lie, though. Her eyes narrow and she snorts. “Fine. You just want me to go so you can write something dirty.” She rises from the chair with her chin lifted, tall and sleek.

“You’ve got me all figured out,” Varric agrees, with a smile.

“I’m going to go have some real breakfast,” she declares, scooping up the remainder of her possessions. “Let dwarves get back to their scurrilous literature. That they won’t let me read.”

“Bye, Hawke.” He’s already itching to get back into the work.

“See you tonight,” she calls from the door, her boots and coats half-on.

She’s not really annoyed with him, then, and that relaxes the last of his irritation. It’s their usual night for cards. Fenris and Daisy will be by. Varric waves at her, already rereading what he just wrote so he can get back to the train of thought. “See you.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Six: What She Looks Like When She Leaves**

Ash and smoke cloud the air, hiding the sight of Kirkwall tearing itself apart.

Not hiding the sounds, though: people screaming, running through the streets, and somewhere, distantly, the roar of flame and the crash of falling stone and timber.

It turns out the Chantry doesn’t go down easily.

What’s left of Hawke’s band stands on the docks, the rowboat they used to escape the Gallows tied up beside them. Hawke and Anders and Merrill and Aveline, and Varric himself, who’s trying hard not to think about how few of them there are now, about the empty spaces standing between them.

“What now?” Merrill asks, fretting, rubbing a toe against the ground.  


“We’ve got to get up there and set things straight,” Hawke says. She shifts her weight, poised to move, even though she’s still grimy from the last battle, her face and hands smeared with dirt and blood. She hasn’t even cleaned her weapons properly yet.

“No, _I_ _’ve_ got to get up there,” Aveline says, in a tone of voice that brooks no opposition. “You’ve got to get out of the city. Or he does, at least.”

She jerks her head toward Anders, who’s slumped on a nearby crate. Varric glances toward him and then away, his mouth pursed. He lit his spark in a city full of dry tinder, and now that the flames are raging, the man looks like a puppet with its strings cut, slouched and hangdog, staring into nothing. What vigor and focus he was able to summon during their fight through the Gallows seems to have deserted him now.

He looks so desolate, though, that Varric can’t help but pity him, and he’s annoyed with himself for it. 

Hawke glances at Anders, too, and her face twists as she glances away.

Aveline continues, inexorable. “It won’t be safe here for him once people realize he’s responsible. And the city won’t be safe if he’s here.”

Hawke frowns. “You really think Sebastian going to bring back an army?”

“It doesn’t matter what Choirboy does,” Varric interrupts, having added things up. Sometimes it seems like he’s the only one of them with any head for figures. “Cullen let us go. Out of some quirk of conscience, I guess. The rest of the templars in the Free Marches might not be so generous.”

Without looking up, Anders says, “They can take me if they must. It doesn’t matter what happens to me now.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Hawke snaps without looking back at him. “Your dying isn’t going to do anyone any good.”

Except maybe, Varric adds mentally, Anders himself. And Justice. He can see it plainly: once the Chantry blew, Anders gave up, a spent bolt with no more purpose. He’d practically asked for death, after all.

But it’s not in Hawke to just let him go. There was no way she was going to be able to deliver the killing blow herself, no matter what Anders or anyone else said. Not after being tied to Anders for so long. Not after seeing her brother and her sister and her mother fall in front of her.

What Varric really doesn’t get is how, after all this time, Anders still doesn’t understand that about her.

Hawke takes a breath and then blows it out, shifting from one foot to the other. Varric knows what she’s going to say before she says it, and his heart falls like a stone.

“All right,” Hawke says. “We’ll go. We can swing by the storage cache in the clinic, and get out through the tunnels.”

Aveline nods once, sharply. “Best you don’t try to make Hightown right now. Too much going on in the streets.”

Hawke nods. “Someone needs to find Bodahn and Sandal and Orana, though —”

“I’ll make sure your people are safe,” Aveline says, steady as a rock. “And your dog, don’t worry.”

Varric wishes he could be as steady. This wasn’t the end of the story he’d envisaged. It seems like he should have seen it coming, trouble spooling up tighter and tighter around the city, but shit. He’d hoped for a better ending than this.

Damn Meredith and that damned idol, anyway.

“Merrill,” Hawke says. “What about you? Do you want to come with us?”

Merrill shakes her head, her grip on her staff tightening. “I have to get back to the alienage.”

She’s already fidgeting, Varric realizes, poised to go, a bird pulling against its jesses. Her markings stand out darkly against her skin, and her eyes look enormous in the darkness. She says, “I don’t know if I can help, but I have to try.”

“Right,” Hawke says. “Of course. Go on, take care of yourself.”

“And you, Hawke.” Merrill holds out her hand, palm out. “Dareth shiral.”

Only a moment more, and she’s gone, darting swiftly into the shadows of the docks, aiming herself toward the alienage as if she’s never been lost in the city in her life.

The moment Varric’s been dreading arrives, as Hawke turns to him, and says, “Varric?”

He imagines that there is hope shining in her eyes, that the tension in her posture is awaiting his reply, not an eagerness to be on her way.

But hell, this was never going to be a story where she fell into his arms. He’s the narrator, not the hero or her lover.

Looks like now he’s going to be one of the ones who try to pick up the pieces after everything goes to shit.

He shakes his head. Hawke’s expression changes, but it’s acceptance, not despair, that he sees. “Sorry, Hawke. I’d better stay. Not sure Aveline can clean up this mess without me.”

“More like you create mess,” Aveline grumbles, but without any force to it.

“I knew I could never pry you out of Kirkwall,” Hawke says, the old complaint seeming thin and threadbare by now.

Varric shrugs, playing it off casually. “I was here a long time before you were,” he says. “Better get going, Hawke.” There’s no point in drawing this out any longer than they have to.

To Varric’s surprise, Hawke bends down and hugs him; an awkward hug, her armor stiff and creaking, the hilt of one of her daggers jabbing into his side. She smells like sweat and smoke and dried blood, and her grip is shockingly tight. Caught off guard, it takes him a moment to hug her back, hard, putting everything he can’t say into this one last moment of contact.

It only lasts a moment before she steps back, straightening and turning to Aveline, who sighs and pats Hawke’s back briefly. “Don’t get in too much trouble,” Aveline says in a world-weary voice, as if Hawke and Anders won’t have half the trouble in Thedas breathing down their necks already.

“You know me,” Hawke says with a shadow of her usual smile.

“If you can get to Hercinia, or Markham, or Wycome,” Varric says, “I’ve got agents there. Ask around, they’ll know how to get a letter to me.”

Hawke nods, absent-mindedly scrubbing at her face. Dried blood falls off in flakes. “Might be a while.”

“Yeah. Take your time.” And stay safe, he wants to say, but doesn’t, as Hawke turns to Anders, her jaw set.

He rises when she speaks to him, heavily, as if the ground is pulling him down. But he does rise, and falls in beside her, looking somehow hunched and small in spite of his height and his staff. His cloak covers his shoulders like roosting crows.

Hawke strides off with only half a glance to make sure Anders is following along. She doesn’t look back at Varric and Aveline at all.

Within moments, they, too, have vanished into the smoke.

“Right,” Aveline says briskly. “First things first, let’s find the nearest Guardsmen.”

Varric nods, readying Bianca. No way they’re getting through the streets without a fight, so they’d better stick together. “Okay. Once we find a patrol, you take Hightown, I’ll take Lowtown.”

Aveline sniffs. “Nobles or Carta. I’m not sure which of us has the worse end of the deal.”

“Me neither. Shall we?”

Aveline nods and leads the way, shield braced. Varric follows at her back, gaze flicking into the shadows. At the back of his mind, he wonders how far Hawke’s gotten — probably not even to Darktown yet. Shit, as clouded as the streets are with smoke and ash, she could be only a couple of paces away, invisible and out of reach.

The hero’s not supposed to get run out of town at the end of the story. The narrator’s not supposed to feel like another piece of his heart is getting torn off, either.

Maybe once they’ve put the fires out, he can come up with a better ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter of this fic, but probably not the last for these characters. It'll take them a while, but they'll eventually discover Varric's feelings for Hawke aren't so one-sided after all...


End file.
